فصل 01 - بخش 02

PART TWO PLANTING MOON ONE

Leaping Turtle knew instantly that I was dead. My blood spurted over him as my body dropped at his feet. Instinct sent him diving into the undergrowth, where branches and twigs stabbed him so that he too began bleeding. He did not look back. Stumbling up again, he crashed through the bushes, on and on, until he found a trail. Then he ran southward, sobbing as he ran, mourning his dead brother, tears and sweat mixing on his face. He ran and he ran, toward Sowams.

And as spirit, I was not free to leave. I was held there by the horror in the mind of small John, and by the tomahawk with the blade of my ancestors.

I watched. I listened.

The boy stood shocked into silence, staring aghast at my shattered chest and the bright blood, and at my face with the wide open eyes that could no longer see.

Two Englishmen came running out of the trees. One was tall and young, the other a short man in soldier’s clothes, carrying the long gun they call a musket. He was grinning down at my body.

“The Lord delivered us the murderous savage!” he cried, and clapped John on the shoulder. “You’re safe, boy! God be praised we were in time to save you!”

John shrieked at him. “He was helping us, couldn’t you see? I shouted! I told you!”

“Are you mad? We saw him attacking you!”

“He was trying to cut my father free!”

In a brief instant of uncertainty, they looked beyond my spread-eagled body, and the tomahawk fallen near my hand. They saw the boy’s father lying trapped by the leg, and the other man’s body crushed under the trunk of the tree, and they rushed forward, the small man tossing his musket aside. They clawed at the branches, trying to reach the white man’s broken body, and then fell back as they saw there was no hope.

“Goodman Ford is dead,” the small man said.

John was still gazing at the great wound in my chest, caught up in horror. His white shirt was spattered with my blood. “Why didn’t you stop? You’ve killed him!”

The younger man was angling himself to where the boy’s father was lying.

“He was trying to help!” John was sobbing. “Why did you kill him?” He was gasping with sobs, on and on.

The small man swung round and slapped his face. “Stop it, boy!”

John was suddenly silent. The younger man was kneeling, feeling the father’s neck.

“Goodman Wakeley is alive,” he said. “Hand me that axe, we must cut the branch away.”

A long-handled axe with a metal head was lying on the ground near the base of the fallen tree. With strong practiced strokes the tall young man cut through the thick base of the branch that was pinning John’s father’s leg. It was a wonderful axe, far quicker than my tomahawk could have been.

The weight of the branch came off the man with the last stroke of the axe. They pulled him free, carefully. The small man felt the leg. “The bone is broken,” he said.

“I will run for a litter,” the other said. “But—Master Kelly—” He hesitated, looking at my body.

John said dully, once more, “He was trying to help. He was a friend.”

“A friend!” said the small man. “Hah!”

“My father will tell you,” John said.

“Enough, boy!” the man snapped at him. “You were mistaken! With our own eyes we saw him attacking you—did we not, Daniel?”

“We did!” said the other. He was still standing over my body, as if asking what to do.

And the small man made his decision.

“The savage requires no record,” he said. “Some hearts in the colony are excessive tender, as we have seen. A threat has been removed, and one sinful heathen is no loss to the world.”

So they picked up my body, one man at the head and one at the feet; they swung it like a bag of corn and tossed it as far as they could into the undergrowth.

Small John watched them. He was sitting beside his unconscious father, hunched on the ground, rocking to and fro. He made no sound.

The tall man hurried away. The other pulled a few branches over the ground to cover my spilled blood. Then he stood beside John, looking down at him.

“Get up, boy,” he said, “and hearken to me. The Lord by his Almighty power brought us here because he loves Christians, not the Devil’s spawn. The Indian is of no consequence. I killed him for good reason, though I shall not brag of it. As you may know, I am Walter Kelly, and my friend is Daniel Smith. If you slander those who have rescued your father, none will believe you. Do you understand?”

John said, very low, “Yes, master.”

He was ten years old.

Men came hurrying soon with a litter, and none of them gave John much thought. He kept out of their way as they picked up his father, as gently as they could, and placed him on the litter to be carried to their settlement. Some other men had arrived with tools, to begin the long task of sawing through the felled tree to release the body of the man who lay dead beneath it.

Nobody paid any attention to John as he edged close to the undergrowth and picked up my tomahawk, which had been pushed aside by the litter and was lying hidden by grass. He slid it up under his jerkin, where it rested awkwardly against his shoulder but was hidden, and he followed the little procession as it moved slowly away.